LEAVES. To 7 April.
London
LEAVES
by Lucy Cauldwell
Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs) To 7 April 2007
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 4pm
Runs 1hr 50min No interval
TICKETS: 020 7565 5000
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 31 March
Another strong measure of drama from Ireland.
If Lucy Cauldwell’s first play is any measure of what she will produce in future, she’ll become another writer from Ireland on the long list of contributors to the ‘British’ dramatic tradition. Adding an interval might help concentration in the final quarter-of-an-hour, but that’s a small matter. This is an accomplished piece, its five family members all fully realised.
And beautifully-played in Garry Hynes’ production for Galway’s Druid Theatre Company. Here’s an educated family (are those grammar school uniforms Poppy and musically-talented Clover wear?). Lori has been at university in England. Father David is immersed in the etymology of Irish place-names while mother Phyllis is caring, devoted and sometimes near the end of her tether.
While the Belfast setting is important, Phyllis wanting her daughters to escape a city which has had its Troubles and father explaining there’s nothing meaning "beautiful" about the Irish “Bel-”, the play isn’t dependent on any specific context for its characters or the disturbance that’s occurred in their life.
Hynes’ production powers the play with intricate details of family interaction, meeting the demands for a generation of three characters aged 19-12 with Kate Rose O’ Brien’s post- and pre- trauma contrast of enclosed determination and happy innocence and confidence as Lori, and an utterly convincing sisterly contrast between Penelope and Daisy Maguire (alternating performances with Alana Brennan).
There’s micro-reality in this generation’s separate existence, running parallel to their lives as their parents’ children. Conor Lovett’s David and Fiona Bell’s Phyllis similarly play out the tensions their oldest daughter’s experience has brought their marriage, alongside their role as parents. In this they several times snap, Phyllis particularly, trying to retrieve the situation against childhood perceptions of when things have gone wrong in the family mechanism.
The build-up to Lori’s entry; the first sight of her, alone and silent on a childhood swing (reminiscent of happier childhood days) is finely done. The eventual swing back in the story to the final moments before she leaves home may be an established dramatic trick but it’s justified here, while the avoidance of over-explicit information on what happened in England focuses its impact more forcefully.
Phyllis: Fiona Bell
Poppy: Alana Brennan/Daisy Maguire
David: Conor Lovett
Clover: Penelope Maguire
Lori: Kathy Rose O’Brien
Director: Garry Hynes
Designer/Costume: Francis O’Connor
Lighting: Ben Ormerod
Sound: John Leonard
Composer: Sam Jackson
2007-04-01 09:13:22